hmm I understand what you mean. The original idea was to have a flame object in the pot that would start burning more and more using shaders but I'm new to gamedev and shader languages so that overshot entirely 😅
But I do see that there could be two dimensions to track. The amount of items that we need in order to get a soup cooking and the necessary heat to cook it. One problem with that model is that speed seems to then become detached from the item-picking mechanic and has it's own system (heat). Not necessarily where we were going, specially considering the scope of the jam, but separating it like this allows for expanding the game more and not just be a sort of "treasure hunt endless runner" thing.
Thank you for playing the game and review it!